“That's how women are, always studyin' each other and wonderin' how they look up 'gainst the next.”

“That's just how it is, you know," she said. "Women always choose men over other women.”

“Women always put men first. That's how everything got so screwed up.”

“All men have parties and are pals who never let each other down. A pal can say terrible things which are forgotten the next day. A pal never forgives, he just forgets, and a woman forgives but never forgets. That's how it is. That's why women aren't allowed to have parties. Being forgiven is very unpleasant.”

“That's how people live in the real world: forcing stuff on each other.”

“They all dreamt of each other that night, as was natural, considering how thin the partitions were between them, and how strangely they had been lifted off the earth to sit next each other in mid-ocean, and see every detail of each others' faces, and hear whatever they chanced to say.”